Sebi's Sinha to target wrongdoers

SummaryAs many as 1.2 lakh cases of complaints are pending, which has denied justice to investors.

Sebi's new chief U K Sinha has sought fast-track resolution of long-running investigations being conducted by the market regulator, some of which are over a decade old.

Seeking to cut down on huge pendency of thousands of cases of suspected violation of various Sebi regulations, Sinha has asked his investigation officers to expedite probes and resolve the cases at the earliest with necessary enforcement actions.

Sinha has identified early resolution of cases and getting rid of long-pending probes as his priority and has been in discussion in this regard with the leadership team at Sebi over the past two weeks, senior officials said.

Sinha took charge as Chairman of Securities and Exchange Board of India on February 18, after the end of a three-year term of his predecessor C B Bhave.

An ex-IAS officer, Sinha has also held senior central and state government positions. He was Joint Secretary (Banking) and Joint Secretary (Capital Markets) in finance ministry.

Taking a cue from the new chairman, Sebi within a few days of his taking over, resolved close to two dozen investigation cases in a single day on February 28.

It passed orders or closed the cases in over a dozen cases on each of the previous two working days on February 25 and February 24.

The officials said the frequency of resolving long-pending cases can go up further in coming days, as Sebi is concentrating on fast-resolution of probes with high pendency levels.

Many of the long-pending cases relate to periods 7-10 years ago, while there are also probes pertaining to suspected violations which are a decade old.

As on December 31, 2010, Sebi probe was continuing in over 1.2 lakh cases of investor complaints for possible enforcement actions, while more than 40,000 grievances were still being followed up for initiating any investigation.

Of this more than 25,000 investor complaints are against listed companies, over 2,300 against mutual funds and over 5,000 against brokers and sub-brokers.